In brief: Protesters in Brazil take to bay to demand cleanup before 2016 Olympics
RIO DE JANIERO– At least 30 boats of all sizes paraded across Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay on Saturday to protest contamination in the waters where sailing events will be held next year during the Olympic Games.
Sailboats, schooners, tourist boats, canoes and fishing boats made a 7-mile round trip from the Marina da Gloria on Guanabara Bay to Urca, a neighborhood located at the foot of Rio’s iconic Sugarloaf mountain. The Living Bay group that organized the event said in a statement that athletes train in the bay under precarious conditions and that the bay should always be in good condition regardless of its use in large events like the Olympics.
As part of Brazil’s Olympic project, authorities pledged more than six years ago to drastically cut the amount of raw human sewage in Guanabara Bay before the 2016 games. But only one of eight promised treatment plants has been built to filter waste from nearby rivers that have become open-air sewage ditches, and the bay’s once-crystalline waters remain fetid.
Washington Post reporter to appear for last Iran hearing
TEHRAH, Iran – Detained Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian will appear in an Iranian court Monday for what likely will be the last hearing in his closed-door espionage trial, his lawyer said Saturday.
Lawyer Leila Ahsan told the Associated Press that Monday’s court session will be devoted to her defense of Rezaian, the Post’s Tehran bureau chief.
Rezaian, his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, and two photojournalists were detained along with him on July 22, 2014, in Tehran. All were later released except Rezaian.
Rezaian reportedly faces up to 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges that include espionage and distributing propaganda against the Islamic Republic. The Post, the U.S. government and press freedom organizations have criticized his trial.
Doctor known for campaign against thalidomide dies at 101
LONDON, Ontario – Frances Kelsey, a Canadian doctor known for her tenacity in keeping a dangerous drug given to pregnant women off the U.S. market, has died at age 101.
She died Friday, less than 24 hours after receiving the Order of Canada in a private ceremony at her daughter’s home in London, Ontario.
Kelsey was a medical officer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the early 1960s when she raised concerns about thalidomide, a drug that was being used in other countries to treat morning sickness and insomnia in pregnant women. Despite pressure from the makers of thalidomide to approve the drug, she refused, and as a result, thousands of children were saved from crippling birth defects.
After the sedative was prescribed beginning in 1950, thousands of children whose mothers took the drug were born with abnormally short limbs and in some cases without any arms, legs or hips. The birth defects were reported in Europe, Australia, Canada and Japan.